The Amazingly Awesome Adventures of Tank the Tortoise (by R. Dash)

by Bradel

Chapter 7 – Angelbunny Attacks!

A fierce gust of wind rattled the shutters on the windows of Twilight Sparkle's library. Thunder rumbled in the distance and Owlowiscious gave an alarmed hoot. The sounds of a propeller, a dull thump, and the crashes of falling books drifted up to where Rainbow Dash lay on the library's second floor, cradling her head in her hooves. Spike began shouting in his high-pitched voice, and Dash moaned in response. This headache was unbearable.

"Rainbow? Are you sure you're okay?"

She was undeniably, unquestionably un-okay. Of course, she wasn't about to admit that. "It's nothing. I'll be fine in a minute." Thunder boomed through the library. "Oh for pony's sake, why does it have to be so loud!?"

Rainbow Dash felt the tickle of magic around her ears, and suddenly it seemed she was hearing the world through a thick, wet blanket. Dash gasped in relief. She gave Twilight a grateful look. The unicorn's mouth moved in response, but to Dash her voice was a muted buzz. "I can't hear you Twilight," she said apologetically. Dash couldn't hear her own voice either, and suspected she was probably shouting.

Without warning, the cacophony returned: the thunder, the wind, shouts, crashes. "I asked if that—"

"Put it back! Put it back!" The noise winked out again, and the relief nearly made Rainbow Dash sob. It took her a moment to realize that not all sound had been muted this time. A translucent magenta bubble shimmered in the air around her and Twilight.

"I asked," Twilight said for the third time, "if that made it any better."

Maybe it wasn't the coolest way to respond, but Rainbow Dash leapt up to give her friend a heartfelt hug. "Yes! Ohh, this is the best I've felt since the weather ponies started this stupid storm."

Twilight shot Rainbow Dash a confused look. "But you're a pegasus, Rainbow. You knew they were planning a big storm, right?"

"Of course I knew that! ...I just didn't know I'd wake up feeling like Applejack was locked in my head and trying to kick her way out."

Suddenly, a propeller-wearing tortoise flew inside the bubble, followed by a hooting owl. The tortoise buzzed in a circle around Dash, with the owl pursuing and looking increasingly irritated. The tortoise flew in closer and gave Rainbow Dash's cheek an especially wet lick.

"TANK!" She grabbed the tortoise by the shell and forced him away. Why couldn't she just have some peace and quiet? Dash carried Tank to the edge of the bubble of silence and stuck her head out. The noise of the storm exploded in her ears, but she tried to ignore it. "Spike, could you please take Tank and Owlowiscious to play somewhere else? They're... really cramping my style."

Rainbow Dash released Tank, and he gave her a hurt look before descending back to the first floor, his head hanging low. Dash muttered under her breath and returned to Twilight's wonderful globe of quiet.

"Don't you think you're being a little hard on them, Rainbow?" Twilight gave the pegasus a small frown. "I know you have a headache, but it's not their fault."

"Tank knows I'm having a bad day," Dash grumbled. "He'll be fine." She paused for a moment, looking around the library. "Hey, Twilight, do you have any paper I could use? Maybe some time writing would make me feel better..."

———————————————————————————————————

The Amazingly Awesome Adventures of Tank the Tortoise

By R. Dash

Chapter 7 – Angelbunny Attacks!

The top of the stairs opened onto a wide landing and a pair of towering bronze doors.

Tank the tortoise pulled himself up the final step. He had nearly forgotten how difficult it was to get around without the help of his trusty propeller. Even in situations like the fight on the train, when he didn't have room to fly, the propeller still helped him speed up his motion considerably.

As he and Winona emerged onto the landing, a high-pitched voice squeaked out from the shadows. "Tank the tortoise! Thy journey endeth here!"

"Rochefort! Show yourself, you filthy traitor!" Tank tried to scan the room, but his neck moved so slowly. Finally, he caught sight of the white-clad ninja rabbit as he slipped from the darkness in the corner of the landing, brandishing a pair of wicked-looking knives. He threw, and one of them came spinning through the air, straight at Tank's head, so fast the tortoise didn't have time to react.

But Winona did. She leapt in front of Tank and grabbed the spinning dagger out of the air with her paw. "Tank, get to Angelbunny and stop him. I'll take care of this one." And without waiting for an answer, Winona bounded forward to meet Rochefort in deadly combat.

Struggling forward on legs that moved too slow, Tank watched as the two fought. It was a very even contest. Winona really was one of the League's best agents. The two were still fighting with neither showing a clear edge when Tank reached the bronze doors and pushed his way into the lab of Dr. Angelbunny.

The room was pitch dark as Tank entered, but once he was inside the door slammed shut behind him mechanically and a loud "fwoosh" filled the air as huge, industrial lights clicked on overhead. It took Tank only a moment to adjust to the light and take in his surroundings. Huge vats of green goo and work tables littered with half-completed robots lined the walls of the enormous lab. Everywhere Tank looked, it was as if an explosion of science had been detonated. The tortoise didn't know what even the tenth part of it might do, but he knew it was all bad news.

And there, just past the middle of the room, Dr. Angelbunny himself sat perched on the edge of a titanic mahogany desk, a small smile fixed on his face.

"Ahh, Tank the tortoise. How good of you to come and visit me! It's always a pleasure to talk with old friends. Before one has to kill them."

"You'll never get away with this, Angelbunny." Tank tried his best to stride heroically into the room, but it was hard to be heroic at a snail's pace.

The little white rabbit laughed. "Get away with what, Tank? I've hardly even been here a month. Do you really think I've been laying dastardly plans of world conquest? I've barely had time to unpack!"

Tank's eyes narrowed as he continued forward. "You think the League doesn't already know what you're up to? We managed to decrypt the data files we recovered after the last time we defeated you. We know all about the Lagomorphing Apparatus hidden in the White Tail Forest!"

"Oh do you?" Angelbunny shot Tank a toothy grin. "How very interesting. But you're too late, Tank. My minions recovered the device this very morning. In fact, it's right here!"

The rabbit patted a large metal contraption on the desk beside him, something that looked suspiciously like a futuristic rifle. "I've been looking for an opportunity to try it out..." He hefted it and pointed the barrel of the gun at Tank, and a red dot danced across the tortoise's face. "But," Angelbunny sighed, "trying it on you would probably be a mistake. I'm quite fond of seeing you like this, Tank – so slow and helpless. I wouldn't want to change that by rabbitifying you just yet." With a look of regret, the rabbit set the device back on the desk beside him.

Tank strained forward. He was nearly halfway to his target now, but moving so slowly. "Come on, you villain! Come and fight me!"

Angelbunny gave a cackling laugh. "And why would I do that, tortoise?" He leapt down from the desk and began to hop around the room. "All I have to do is move a little, and you'll never be able to catch me. We can just wait here comfortably while my minions finish you and your friends in the League. And then I'll have plenty of new subjects for my experiments with the lagomorpher!"

He was right. Tank couldn't hope to fight Angelbunny in this state unless Angelbunny wanted it. Then Tank just had to find a way to make Angelbunny want it.

"Because," the tortoise responded, "if all you do is run away, even if you win, you'll still know you were a coward. Your minions will know it. When Tank the tortoise came to stop you, you turned tail and ran. Not very inspiring leadership for a supervillain. And maybe Rochefort or one of the others would get it in his head that he could do better, that you're too weak to rule over your new rabbit empire. Unless you fight me, tortoise to hare, as nature intended."

Angelbunny scowled at Tank. "Why do you want to die so badly, tortoise? You can't think this will end well for you."

Tank gave the rabbit his most confident grin. "I have to try, don't I? Maybe I'll surprise you." But the truth was, not even Tank could see how he could win this fight. Angelbunny was faster, smarter, and had all the tools of his lab at his disposal. And Tank, Tank was just a tortoise.

The white rabbit stepped forward, ready to do battle.

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Rainbow Dash rubbed a hoof against her forehead. How did you beat an opponent who was smarter than you, faster than you, and better equipped? Dash just didn't know.

She looked up from her pages and noticed that the glow of Twilight's silence spell was gone. The unicorn was watching her and seemed to understand Rainbow Dash's unspoken question. "Spike and the other two stopped playing a few minutes ago, so I pushed the bubble outside. Now it's just blocking the noise of the storm."

Rainbow Dash nodded at the explanation and turned back to her story. How was she going to write her way out of this? Pinkie had said awesomeness only went so far in writing. In the end, your story had to be believable. And in her heart, Rainbow Dash didn't believe Tank could beat Dr. Angelbunny.

"Ugh. Why'd I have to make Tank lose his propeller? Without it, he's just a slow, dumb tortoise. He's not cool, or radical, or awesome. He's just... dumb and boring."

"Rainbow!" Dash looked up to see Twilight staring at her in horror.

"What? It's true. This is really hard to write. He's completely worthless without that propeller."

From below, Dash heard the buzz of a propeller that wasn't broken and the thump of something hitting one of the library's windows. She looked around, realizing what she'd just said, but the faint sound of wind was already echoing inside Twilight's silence spell.

Comments

[Scyphi]

i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z432/VladimirPierreMacHolzraum/RainbowDashdunDunDun.png

[Namara]

Huge vats of green goo

images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/29400000/Gak-is-Back-old-school-nickelodeon-29477838-631-463.png

[djthomp]

Oh Dash...

[Scaevolla]

Rainbow can be so insensitive. On the other hand, a headache make anyone at least 1000% percent more insensitive.
I actually wondering: was the storm a reason of her headache in the first place? Or does somepony just like to party a little too hard?
Also: "fight me, tortoise to hare, as nature intended." - I was waiting for this reference from the first chapter!

[Midnight herald]

Rainbow, you don't DO that. Especially when you've already made him nervous by saying he 'cramps your style.' I think the best course of action now is to write an awesome scene of Tank being awesome without augmentation and have some apology lettuce. And hope to Celestia that your tortoise is willing to forgive you.

[Ragingturtle72]

Ya dun goofed Rainbow

[keaton-furman-prower]

Ouch, Rainbow. Ouch.

Also, I'm imagining Dr. Angelbunny with the voice of Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb.

AH, Tank the Tortoise! You've arrived just in time! Behold! The Lagomorph-inator!

[recca pony]

nice ready to read the ending

[Redbush]

RD hating on her own pet?
Seems a bit unbelievable

[OmniFox]

HARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSHHH!!!!!!

[Corvid]

I always thought The Mountains of Madness was one of Lovecraft’s most overrated stories, the whole thing seeming to boil down to ‘expedition is confused, expedition members get killed for study by mysterious creature, main character goes to alien architecture that is creepy because we’re told it’s creepy, main character and pal escape creature that lives there and makes funny noise, end’. This is starting to look like what that could have been had it incorporated more if the psychological and metaphysical elements of a lot of his other works that I really enjoy. I mean, I’ve read everything available that he’s written, no joke, but out if three “complete works” I own by different publishers, each of them has stories that the others don’t, so there’s always a bit of irritation with that for me. The closest story I can think of that made it to this level is the one where a machine is sent to body-swap the human narrator with a being from another time and live with that kind of madness. I’m not sure if you were going for anything at all like that tone, with Pinkie!Creepypasta being so prevalent, but I like the theme of simply knowing about a thing corrupting the reader (like I believe it’s pointed out in Tolkien, just learning about the One Ring is one of several elements that lead Saruman to his eventual doom). You’re tying a lot of fun things together here for me even if it’s just in my own head haha.